Chapter XCooperation in Other Fields

The web of U.S.-Canadian co-operation during World War II spread its threads throughout many fields other than the activities of the armed services, which themselves involved, over and beyond co-operation in operational and logistical matters, the working out of many common problems in the fields of military administration, discipline, training, and supply. Research and development programs enjoyed a degree of collaboration which guaranteed that the discoveries and advances of each nation were shared by the other in the many fields of investigation. And, as a partner in the combined program for atomic energy research, Canada made significant contributions to the development of the atomic weapon. In the field of arms production, the two countries worked out extraordinary arrangements to see not only that the full Canadian production potential was realized but also that the Canadian economy received enough support to prevent the Canadian war production effort from having harmful effect.

Extensive co-operation also took place on many matters only indirectly related to the main military programs of Canada and the United States, some of which are recorded by other authors or elsewhere in this study.1 A few examples may be cited. Beginning in 1941, the two countries agreed, for the duration of the war, to permit increased diversions of the waters of the Niagara River, above the Falls, as a means of increasing the electric power supply.2 For a similar purpose, agreement was reached and repeated annually to provide for the raising of the level of the Lake of St. Francis on the St. Lawrence River.3 Several measures provided for more effective use of transportation facilities available on the Great Lakes. The two countries agreed in 1941 reciprocally to relax their load-line regulations in order to permit lake shipping to carry increased amounts of ores and other materials.4

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The United States later lifted its restrictions on the transportation of ores between U.S. lake ports by Canadian vessels, thus permitting over-all improvement of the ore transportation situation through use of shipping resources made available by Canada.5

One perennially discussed project, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence seaway, is notably missing from the catalog of joint undertakings of Canada and the United States during World War II. On the eve of Pearl Harbor an executive agreement on the oft-studied project awaited action on the floor of the House of Representatives. Although a similar treaty signed in 1932 had been rejected by the Senate in 1934, the 1941 technique of approval of an executive agreement by simple majorities in the Congress and Parliament offered promise of success. Although the seaway and power project had been strongly supported by President Roosevelt as a defense measure before Pearl Harbor, with U.S. entry into the war Congress deferred consideration of the project in favor of more urgent undertakings.6

Administration and Personnel

Initially, U.S. citizens who enlisted in the Canadian armed forces before Pearl Harbor lost their citizenship by being required to take an oath of allegiance to the British crown. President Roosevelt considered the question and concluded that U.S. citizens could enlist in the Canadian forces without loss of citizenship if they were not obliged to take the oath of allegiance. When this conclusion was conveyed informally to the Canadian Government, it ceased to require the oath from U.S. enlistees.7

Immediately after U.S. entry into the war, U.S. authorities received large numbers of requests from U.S. citizens and former citizens serving with Canadian forces for transfer to the armed forces of the United States. The Permanent Joint Board on Defense discussed the problem on 20 December 1941. Although the Canadian members fully agreed that such transfers were desirable from a morale standpoint, they expressed concern over the adverse effects of such a step. For one thing, the instructor staff of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, which included several hundred

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Americans, would be disrupted. For another, several thousand Americans were in the course of being trained, and Canada had already expended many millions of dollars in training them. The active units from which those who had completed training would be transferred would also be impaired. These prospects were not bright ones for Canada, which was already faced with the virtual drying up of the flow of U.S. enlistees as a result of Pearl Harbor.8 The Permanent Joint Board was unable to agree on a recommendation on the subject at that meeting. A few days later U.S. Chairman LaGuardia obtained President Roosevelt's approval of the U.S. Section's point of view. Canada and the United Kingdom shortly thereafter agreed in principle to a transfer arrangement, and on 17 January 1942 the President announced publicly that arrangements were being made. He pointed out, however, that the need to minimize the impact of transfers on the effectiveness of British and Canadian units would preclude immediate action and necessitate considerable delays.9

The armed forces in both Canada and the United States continued to study the technical and administrative problems involved in the transfer. In March 1942 the United States proposed an agreement based on arrangements tentatively worked out for effecting the transfers. Under the proposals, U.S. enlistees were to be given the opportunity to apply for transfer between 6 and 20 April 1942. The United States would then send boards of officers to Canada to interview the applicants, with power to appoint or enlist them. Similar Canadian boards would discharge or release the personnel but would be empowered to postpone transfers "if in their opinion immediate transfer would prejudicially affect the common war effort." The Canadian Government undertook to give effect to the agreement proposed by the United States.10

A Canadian-American Military Board, headed by Maj. Gen. Guy V. Henry (retired) who was later to become Senior U.S. Army Member of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, visited thirty-three Canadian cities between 5 May and 3 June 1942. The board effected the transfer of 2,058 of the approximately 5,000 Americans stationed in Canada of the total of 16,000 Americans in the Canadian forces. The AAF received 1,444 of those transferring, of which 665 were pilots. The transfer of 51 pilots was deferred so as not to interfere with the RCAF training program. Since only a fraction of those eligible made the transfer, the impact on the Canadian

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war effort was smaller than had been anticipated, although the training of those who did transfer represented a Canadian investment of about $25 million.11

The Canadian-American Military Board on 31 July 1942 became the Inter-Allied Personnel Board and thereafter handled similar matters with other countries. The new board soon developed a voluminous correspondence relating to many of the approximately 3,000 Americans in the Canadian armed forces serving in Canada who claimed lack of opportunity to make the transfer. As a result, transfers from the Canadian Army were reopened in October 1943 and from the RCAF in March 1944. Under the supplementary arrangements, 463 were transferred from the RCAF to the AAF, 137 from the Canadian Army to the U.S. Army, and 338 from the U.S. Army to the Canadian Army.12

In early 1942 while examining the problem of transferring these Americans, the authorities of the two countries also discussed the application of compulsory military service requirements of one country to resident nationals of the other country. In the interests of individual morale and each country's war effort, the United States proposed that a Canadian national residing in the United States who had not declared his intention of becoming a U.S. citizen could, if drafted for service under the U.S. Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, elect to serve in the Canadian armed forces instead. Canada was to grant reciprocal treatment to U.S. citizens living in Canada. Canada agreed to this arrangement on 6 April 1942, and in the following months established at seven points in the United States military personnel centers for the purpose of enlisting such of the 91,000 nondeclarant male Canadians who, in place of being drafted into the U.S. armed forces, might choose to serve with the Canadian forces.13 A few months later, after Canada had amended its compulsory military service regulations to include the conscription of aliens, the arrangement became applicable to U.S. citizens residing in Canada. Since the number of U.S. citizens that might be drafted by Canada was small, the United States did not establish enlisting offices in Canada but adopted a simplified procedure for enlisting these individuals.14

Many administrative problems of lesser importance arose and were solved

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by the two countries in a spirit of friendly co-operation. When in June 1942 Canada suggested that the payment of its forces in Alaska in Canadian dollars presented administrative difficulties and put Canadian soldiers at a disadvantage because of the need to sell their currency at a discount, the United States made arrangements whereby Canadian paymasters were supplied with U.S. currency.15 In May 1943 a reciprocal arrangement was made under which service personnel of either country could obtain free medical and dental service at a service facility of the other country if facilities of their own were not available.16 When a requirement arose during the summer of 1944 for hospital facilities for the Canadian armed forces in Edmonton, and empty beds were available in the U.S. Army hospital there, seventy-five beds were made available to Canada.17 In another instance, to improve the delivery of mail to Canadian forces in Sicily and Italy, the U.S. Army agreed in 1943 to carry some 800 to 1,000 sacks weekly in U.S. ships and invited Canada to place personnel in the U.S. Army Post Office in New York City to assist in handling the mail. Canada, for its part, in 1943 accorded the United States the right to operate six military radio broadcasting stations in Canada for morale and recreation purposes.18 At the end of the same year, when insufficient shipping was available to return U.S. personnel from Alaska, Canada loaned to the United States the SS Princess Louise for use in troop movements.19

Personnel of visiting forces who deserted or were absent without leave were a problem in both countries, although the problem was greater in respect to U.S. forces in Canada. The United States established procedures for apprehending, detaining, and transferring Canadian deserters and absentees in the United States. The Canadian Government, at the request of the United States, provided similar arrangements for U.S. deserters and absentees in Canada.20

The two governments also made arrangements that effected major savings in administrative effort with respect to claims arising from collisions between government vessels and between vehicles. In several exchanges of notes, the two governments agreed that, in cases where such a collision took place, each government would bear all the expenses arising directly or indirectly from the damage to its own vessel or vehicle and would not make

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any claim against the other government.21 Each government quickly made provision for settling claims made by residents of the other country arising from accidents involving vehicles or aircraft of the first. Under the authority of an act of Congress of 2 January 1942, the War Department in 1943 constituted a number of claims commissions within its various commands in Canada to settle such claims. Canada took reciprocal action soon thereafter under authority of an approved minute of the Treasury Board.22

Questions of taxation were worked out to the satisfaction of the United States, the government mostly concerned.23 In the agreements that authorized the two major U.S. projects, the Alaska Highway and the Canol Project, Canada waived (1) the duties, taxes, fees, and similar charges connected with the equipment and supplies or their movement, (2) the income tax of the U.S. residents engaged on the projects, and (3) the royalties on the oil produced by the Canol Project.24 Canada went even further and agreed that the United States should not be taxed by provincial or municipal authorities. In those instances where it became necessary for the United States to pay such taxes, Canada undertook to make reimbursement for the payments.25

Another administrative arrangement agreed upon by the two governments had as its object the simplification of procedures for disposing of prizes captured by the forces of the two countries. Under the agreement, which was reciprocal, a prize captured by the United States in Canadian territorial waters, or captured on the high seas and then brought into Canadian territorial waters, was disposed of through the exercise of jurisdiction by district courts of the United States.26

The Rush-Bagot Agreement

One of the cornerstones of Canadian-U.S. friendship, the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817, was stretched to its elastic limit through interpretation

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designed to meet World War II needs. Its limitation of three vessels of not more than one hundred tons each on the Great Lakes had hindered World War I programs, and, although modification was studied shortly thereafter, no changes were made.Even before the start of World War II, the limitation began to hamper the naval training and construction programs of the two countries. Secretary of State Hull was determined to preserve the agreement, which over one hundred twenty years had achieved a symbolic importance. Whereas changes in ship design, the construction of the Welland Canal, and other circumstances had outdated the underlying hypotheses of the treaty, Hull considered the spirit of the agreement to be its essential element. So long as they did no violence to the spirit of the agreement, interpretations that took account of conditions in 1939 would, in his view, better serve the needs of the day. Accordingly, on 9 June 1939, Hull proposed that the following arrangements should, in accordance with this approach, be acceptable:

Vessels could be constructed for movement to tidewater immediately on completion, but no armament could be installed until after they had left the Lakes.

Five outmoded U.S. Navy vessels of from 1,000-to 2,000-ton displacement could be maintained for training purposes.

Armament could be mounted somewhat in excess of the treaty limitations and used for target practice.27

These proposed arrangements were accepted by the Canadian Government and made effective.

A year later, with Canada embroiled in the war in Europe and its Atlantic shipyards congested, the Canadian Government sought further liberalization of the agreement. It proposed that installation of armaments on ships be permitted on the Lakes provided that such armaments be rendered incapable of use on the Lakes and that the ships be moved from the Lakes promptly on completion. Each government was to keep the other fully informed as to the nature of its construction program. These proposals were accepted by the United States on 2 November 1940.28

The next liberalization of the Rush-Bagot Agreement was proposed in February 1942 by the United States, by then a belligerent, in order to eliminate handicaps imposed by even the 1940 interpretation of the agreement. In order that vessels constructed on the Lakes might be combat ready upon reaching the open sea, the U.S. Government suggested that, for the duration

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of hostilities, the complete installation and test firing of all armaments on vessels constructed on the Lakes should be permitted there. With the intensification of the German submarine offensive in the northwestern Atlantic putting a burden on the seaboard shipyards, Canada readily acquiesced.29 This additional interpretation of the agreement adequately met the needs of the wartime situation, and no further arrangements were sought. After V-J Day the 1942 interpretation became ineffective.

In 1946 the two governments again examined the 1817 agreement. They reaffirmed its historic importance as a symbol of the friendly relations between the two countries. In keeping with discussions that had taken place in the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, Canada suggested that the use of vessels for training purposes should be considered within the spirit of the agreement, provided each country kept the other fully informed concerning such training activities. The United States found the proposal acceptable and the Rush-Bagot Agreement, reinvigorated through the new interpretation, continued its role as a symbol of U.S.-Canadian friendship.30

Miscellaneous Co-operation

The foundation for a full and complete exchange of military information between Canada and the United States had been laid in the very first recommendation of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense. Procedures for exchanges were developed immediately, the principal mechanism being the Board and the planning teams that drafted the 1940 and 1941 defense plans. The establishment of the Canadian Joint Staff in Washington in July 1942 led to a Canadian request for an improvement in the arrangements for exchange of information. Upon the recommendation of the Joint Staff Planners, the Joint Chiefs of Staff designated the former as its liaison with the Canadian Joint Staff. This liaison was primarily related to strategic planning and military operations.31

The mechanics for exchange of intelligence (data concerning the enemy), as distinguished from general military information, had been established long before Pearl Harbor, and in this area actual exchanges of staff officers improved the effectiveness and completeness of the arrangement. These exchanges continued satisfactorily throughout the war except for a period of months in the latter part of 1944, when, because of the heavy turnover of personnel in the War Department, the liaison deteriorated. It soon improved.32

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Throughout 1941 the flow of information increased through interchange of observer groups that visited the activities and facilities of the other country. Significant numbers of Canadian personnel also attended U.S. Army motor maintenance, tank techniques and tactics, motorcycle operation, and similar formal training courses.

Reciprocal training assistance took other forms. In October 1941 the United States authorized Canada to use U.S. territorial waters in Puget Sound for an aerial torpedo range. Later the same year, just after Pearl Harbor, Canada offered use of some of its air training facilities to the United States, anticipating that with the cutting off of the flow Of U.S. trainees into the RCAF the facilities would be idle. The United States did not avail itself of this offer. It did, however, make use of Canadian facilities at Camp Shilo, Manitoba, during the winter of 1942-43. A detachment of some 900 personnel was sent to Shilo to conduct cold weather tests in the use of tanks and other combat vehicles, trucks, guns and ammunition, and other ordnance. The Shilo arrangement was part of a reciprocal agreement under which Canada sent 600 men to Fort Benning, Georgia, for parachute training, to prepare them for service in the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion.

Other co-operative training ventures were the cold weather exercises ESKIMO (a 150-mile move by a composite force in the dry cold of central Saskatchewan) and POLAR BEAR (a similar move across the coastal mountains in British Columbia from the interior dry cold to the coastal wet cold) conducted during the winter of 1944-45. In the early spring of 1945 a third similar joint exercise, LEMMING, was carried out near Churchill for the purpose of testing the operation of various types of oversnow vehicles on the "barren grounds" of northern Canada and on the Hudson Bay sea ice. The forces involved were basically Canadian and Canadian equipped, and the United States contributed and benefited by providing observers and assisting specialists and also tractors and other matériel.

One major Canadian proposal for training co-operation was studied over a period of months but failed to materialize. It involved the use by the United States of surplus training facilities of the Canadian-operated British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. The schools established in accordance with the plan, which had been agreed upon in December 1939 by the governments of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand as a result of proposals advanced from London in September 1939, began operation in June 1940. A large proportion of the Americans joining the Canadian forces before Pearl Harbor passed into the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan either as students or as instructors.33

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United States entry into the war threatened to disrupt the Air Training Plan. Not only did many U.S. instructors indicate a desire to transfer to the U.S. armed forces, but also it appeared likely that the flow of U.S. recruits into the system would dry up at a time when the plan had been budgeted for on the basis of an increasing flow of U.S. recruits. As early as 8 December informal suggestions were advanced through displomatic channels that perhaps Canada could, in consequence, lend some of the excess training plant to the United States, which could operate some of its training centers at such Canadian installations.34

The general proposition was discussed on 20 December by the Permanent Joint Board, which adopted the recommendation (the Twenty-third) that the two countries should consider a U.S.-United Kingdom-Canadian meeting to study co-ordination of the training programs being conducted in North America. The recommendation was approved by both governments, but it received only desultory consideration by the U.S. military officers during the ensuing months.35

In April 1942 Prime Minister King discussed the project with President Roosevelt in Washington and the two announced on 17 April that, at King's invitation, a conference would be held in Ottawa in early May of those Allied nations that had air training programs under way in North America.36 As conference plans moved forward, the War Department became concerned at the scope of the agenda suggested by Canada, feeling that subjects such as the allocation of U.S.-made training aircraft were outside the competence of the conference. In addition, discussion of subjects such as exchange of air crews between nations and the training of members of the AAF in Air Training Plan schools was precluded by the fact that the War Department, principally at the instance of the Army Air Forces, was firmly opposed to such measures. In the War Department view, the solution to the problem of British Commonwealth Air Training Plan surplus capacity was to concentrate under the plan such training of British Commonwealth air crews as was being done elsewhere, as for example in the United States.37 On the Canadian side, King was disappointed that the U.S. delegation would include only service representatives. Apparently through his intercession with Roosevelt, the composition of the U.S. delegation was changed on the eve of its departure so that it was headed, not by Lt. Gen. Henry H. Arnold, as

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had been planned, but by Assistant Secretary of War for Air Robert A. Lovett.38

The conference took place in Ottawa from 19 to 22 May 1942, with representatives of fourteen nations present. In an initial speech, Lovett transmitted a glowing tribute from President Roosevelt, in which he had called Canada the "Airdrome of Democracy." The U.S. delegation nevertheless stood fast in its position against commitments for co-ordinated exchange of training capacity. As its final action, the conference recommended establishment of a Combined Committee on Air Training in North America. This committee was to have advisory functions only and concern itself with problems such as the standardization of training methods and most effective use of the air training capacity in North America.39

Arrangements for formation of the committee moved slowly. The United States advised Canada of the names of its members in September, but by 1 April 1943 a meeting had not yet taken place. Some discussions did take place within the framework of the committee later in 1943, but these had only minor significance. On the original proposal that the United States utilize Air Training Plan capacity, the War Department position in opposition prevailed.40

Except in Alaska and in northeastern United States where the Royal Canadian Navy made use of naval facilities, the Canadian services had only a limited need for use of U.S. installations. When Canadian requests for use of U.S. facilities were made, the United States was able, at least in small measure, to reciprocate for Canadian assistance. In the fall of 1943 the RCAF requested the authority to station a five-man detachment at Millinocket, Maine, and the use of hangar facilities there to assist in handling Canadian service traffic across northern Maine. Instead of constructing a new hangar that would have been needed at Millinocket, the United States provided the needed facilities at nearby Houlton. Similarly, during the summer of 1944, the United States readily granted approval to RCAF training operations at the air base at Bellingham, Washington, under an arrangement that did not involve the provision of any services to the RCAF at the inactive air base.

Internal security of U.S. activities in Canada posed a number of problems that were readily solved through the co-operation of the Canadian

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authorities. In Canada, as well as in the United States, an evacuation of West coast Japanese took place after Pearl Harbor. Beginning in the spring of 1942 U.S. authorities raised the question of the security of the Canadian National Railways, along which internee camps were located at a number of points. To minimize the threat of sabotage, Canada closed certain of the camps and took additional police measures at others.

Another security problem arose after the construction of the air base at Churchill was initiated as a restricted project. The United States proposed that, in view of the isolated character of the site and of its military activities, travel thereto should be restricted to official purposes. In April 1943 the Canadian authorities acceded to this request and declared the area along the railroad from The Pas to Churchill to be a "controlled area," to which the provisions of the Defense of Canada Regulation 5 applied. At almost the same time, Canada offered to designate all premises in Canada occupied by the U.S. armed services "protected places," thereby excluding unauthorized persons, and it did so upon acceptance of the offer.41

A significant U.S. wartime contribution toward the development of the potentialities of northern Canada was the charting of the area by the AAF. The larger part of that area had not previously been photographed aerially, and maps and charts were incomplete and inaccurate. During the summer of 1943 extensive aerial photography projects were executed by AAF aircraft operating from Churchill and Fort Chimo in the east, and Fort McMurray and Norman Wells in the west. The United States shared with Canada the photographs and data obtained.

One of the most spectacular instances of Canadian-U.S. co-operation was the rescue of the personnel of the Hudson's Bay Company post at Fort Ross, Somerset Island. Since the RMS Nascopie had been unable to resupply the post for two navigation seasons, it was decided in October 1943 to try to evacuate the personnel by air. The RCAF could not supply an aircraft for the purpose since all suitable aircraft were occupied with urgent patrol work in the Atlantic. The AAF volunteered to provide an aircraft. On 13 November the rescue, which had been regarded by many as impossible since there was no landing strip, was successfully completed.

Research and Development

Participation in the atomic energy development project that produced the atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima was perhaps the most spectacular, if not the most important, Canadian contribution in the field of research and development. But other less spectacular Canadian

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scientific contributions to the Allied military effort in World War II also represented substantial Canadian accomplishments.42

Canadian-U.S. scientific collaboration was a by-product of a visit to North America, at the suggestion of the United Kingdom, of the British Scientific Mission headed by Sir Henry Tizard in August and September 1940. As a result of the Tizard Mission's visit, the United States, though still a neutral, obtained access to British development work in certain fields such as radar that had gar outstripped U.S. research. In return, the United Kingdom gained benefits from the further refinement and production of the new matériel types in the greater engineering and production facilities of the United States. The fruits of further research by U.S. scientists also became available to the United Kingdom. Canada had provided three members (Brigadier Kenneth Stuart, Air Commodore E. W. Stedman, and Dr. C. J. Mackenzie) of the Tizard Mission, and through this membership was drawn into the tripartite scientific co-operation that resulted. Included in the data brought to the United States by the British scientists was full information on advanced radar developments, and, during the mission's visit, programs of further research in the radar and other fields were laid out and responsibilities were allocated to each country.43

An urgent need existed for an effective radar in the microwave length band, for only in this band could equipment be made sufficiently small to be readily portable either by aircraft or by motor truck. In October 1940 the Canadian National Research Council began work on a microwave fire direction radar, the GL (gun-laying) Mark III C, and the following month U.S. microwave research began at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Radiation Laboratory. A staff of six Canadians worked there, and a full exchange of information was maintained between the two projects. By June 1941 the joint effort had resulted in a successful demonstration of the complete GL Mark III C equipment. Canada produced five sets during the rest of 1941, the third of which was furnished to the U.S. Army at its request. Canada then proceeded to mass produce this set, the first of its type to get into large-scale production. Concurrently, the United States developed a similar set, the
SCR-584. Both sets incorporated research and design advances worked out in both countries.

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In 1942 other advantages in the use of microwave radar induced Canada and the United States to turn to these wave lengths for development of fixed early warning aircraft detection sets. Here, too, close collaboration between the of the two countries by the spring of 1943 had produced a MEW (microwave early warning) radar set of excellent performance. In the field of airborne radar, Canada led the United States. The first radar set mass produced in Canada had been the ASVC (air-to-surface-vessel, Canadian), based on a British prototype. The set was in mass production by the early summer of 1941, and some of the early sets were furnished to the United States for use as models by U.S. manufacturers. The U.S. Army
SCR-521 was a close copy of this Canadian set.

Canadians also had a part in the research, engineering, and production of the radio proximity fuze. In its development the Carnegie Institute in Washington, D. C., and the Toronto Group, which attacked the problem in September 1940, maintained close co-ordination. Many features of the fuze' represented the integration of the best ideas developed in both Canada and the United States. A particular Canadian contribution was the wet battery idea, in which the electrolytic liquid was contained in an ampoule that broke when the shell was fired, thus completing a live, charged-battery power source, yet one that presented no problem as to self-life during storage.

Another significant contribution Canada made to wartime research was in connection with the military explosive RDX, which has up to twice the power of TNT. The explosive had been known since 1899, but despite its attractive features it had not been used for military purposes because of the high cost of production and other disadvantages. Canada undertook to overcome these disadvantages in the spring of 1940 and soon discovered a new process for producing RDX, which proved to be not fully satisfactory. After the Tizard Mission visited North America, a tripartite RDX Committee was established, and the Canadian data was shared with the U.S. scientists who went to work on the project. As a result of the closest possible collaboration in this committee, a new production process was developed which embraced important contributions of both Canadian and U.S. personnel. Largescale production of RDX was first initiated in Canada in July 1942.44

While the research and development work of Canadian scientists during World War II in other fields was important, it was overshadowed by the significance of Canadian research in the field of atomic energy. When the European war began in September 1939, a few Canadian scientists were

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engaged in nuclear research in furtherance of the discoveries of Fermi and others relating to the fission of the uranium atom. During 1940 experiments at Ottawa, under sponsorship of the National Research Council, produced encouraging progress toward a chain reaction. By the following year, informal exchanges of technical information on these experiments had taken place with U.S. scientists.45 On 2 December 1942 the U.S. experiments at the University of Chicago produced the first chain reaction, or self-sustaining pile. As a result of this success, the United States embarked on a full-scale effort to produce the atomic bomb. During these same months in 1942, the Canadian effort also expanded.

With research efforts in the United Kingdom oriented to meet more immediate operational needs and British laboratories threatened with destruction from aerial bombardment, the British Government proposed to the Canadian Government the establishment of a joint atomic energy research project in Canada. The joint effort got under way in September 1942, when a group of British scientists arrived in Montreal. The joint group, financed largely by Canada and administered by the Canadian National Research Council, proceeded with work on a heavy-water pile. United States research was, largely utilizing the graphite types.

One factor alone assured Canada a place of importance in the development of atomic energy. In 1930 a large deposit of radium and uranium ores had been discovered on the shores of Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories. Important in prewar years as a source of radium, the mine had come to rank in production second only to the source in the Belgian Congo. However, market conditions had forced the mine to close in June 1940. In January 1042 the Canadian Government sought market assurances from the United States as a means of improving the financial condition of the owning company so that it could resume operations. Failure to reopen the mine during the spring of 1942 might have resulted in its permanent impairment because of ground water conditions, and this eventuality nearly materialized, for the Canadian inquiry elicited only a noncommittal reply. Fortunately, the progress of intensified experimentation in the atomic field soon created a substantial demand for uranium ore, and in August 1942 the mine was reopened. The Great Bear Lake mine soon became a critical element in the entire atomic energy development project.46

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By mid-1943 it became evident that the various atomic research programs, in the interest of economy of effort, needed to be co-ordinated more closely. As a result of informal discussions during the First Quebec Conference (August 1943, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill established a Combined Policy Committee, on which they invited Prime Minister King to provide Canadian representation. The committee--Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, Dr. Vannevar Bush, and Dr. James B. Conant, for the United States; Field Marshal Sir John Dill and Colonel J. J. Llewellin, for the United Kingdom; and Minister of Munitions and Supply C. D. Howe, for Canada--was charged with the broad direction of the programs as between the countries. A technical committee comprising Maj. Gen. L. R. Groves (United States), Sir James Chadwick (United Kingdom), and Dr. C. J. Mackenzie (Canada) was also set up to co-ordinate and correlate the policy decisions and the joint programs.47

The importance of the uranium ores at Great Bear Lake was by then fully apparent. In January 1944 the Canadian Government therefore expropriated the stock shares of the company, which was renamed Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited, and began operating it as a crown company. In the following months the shaft was enlarged and deepened and the plant expanded to a capacity of one hundred tons of ore per day. This vital ore source, which was operated on a twenty-four-hour basis, continued to be second in importance only to the Belgian Congo among sources available to the United States and Great Britain. The Combined Policy Committee allocated the ore produced.48

By the beginning of 1944 an apportionment of research effort had been made that assigned the heavy-water moderator project to Canada. A site was chosen near Chalk River, Ontario, and the construction of the facility, whose cost together with other costs of the project was to be borne by Canada, moved ahead quickly. Experimentation at Chalk River also progressed rapidly, even while the new laboratories were being completed and the transfer from Montreal was taking place. On 5 September 1945, the Canadian experimental pile was put into operation, the first pile outside of the United States to produce atomic energy. Despite the close tripartite cooperation in atomic research and development, Canada made no attempt to

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manufacture the atomic bomb, nor did it seek the necessary information to do so.49

When hostilities ended, the three partners in atomic development collaborated in a proposal for international action to prevent the use of atomic energy for destructive purposes. Meeting in Washington on 15 November 1945, President Harry S. Truman and Prime Ministers King and Clement Attlee signed an agreed declaration advancing this proposal and the offer to share information concerning the practical applications of atomic energy as soon as effective safeguards against its use for destructive purposes had been established.50 Tripartite co-operation was not to continue on any significant scale, however, for the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 enacted by the U.S. Congress necessitated the elimination of Canadian and British participation in the U.S. project except in limited areas of technical co-operation.51

The Canadian undertaking in the atomic energy field involved, up to the time of completion of the Chalk River Project, expenditures of approximately $27 million. By comparison with those of the United States in developing the atomic bomb, these Canadian expenditures were modest. But they did produce important results in the heavy-water moderator project, which in turn became the springboard for significant advances in the unilateral Canadian research program initiated in the postwar years.

Arsenals of Democracy

Although the full story of the achievements and contributions to victory of the two countries in the field of munitions production would require a volume in itself, this account would not be complete unless it took brief notice of them. When President Roosevelt on 29 December 1940 labeled the United States an "Arsenal of Democracy," he originated a term that was equally applicable to Canada, whose war production record was all the more remarkable in the light of the industrial base from which it developed.52 From the mighty arsenals of Canada and the United States poured forth a stream of munitions that supplied Allied forces on seas and battlegrounds

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TABLE 3--COMBINED CANADIAN-UNITED STATE'S PRODUCTION OF SELECTED
MUNITIONS:
1 JULY 1940-31 AUGUST 1945[Unit--each, or as designated]

Type

Grand Total

United States

Canada

Total

Under U.S.Contract

Airplanes, military types

307,483

291,619

15,864

5,254

Combat

205,581

200,026

5,555

1,652

Trainer

64,061

54,773

9,288

2,850

Cargo and liaison

37,841

36,820

1,021

752

Patrol vessels

2,438

a2,158

280

25

Mine craft

1,164

a966

198

9

Landing vessels, 750 tons and over

1,085

1,069

16

0

Ocean-going cargo and supply vessels

5,504

a5,113

391

0

Artillery, field, tank and self-propelled

223,897

207,988

15,909

2,445

Artillery, antiaircraft (Army)

63,411

49,909

13,502

589

Mortars and bomb throwers

186,234

111,246

74,988

46,567

Smal arms (thousands)

21,808

20,188

1,620

299

Ammunition, ground artillery (thousands)

360,696

324,897

35,799

10,259

Ammunition, mortar and bomb thrower (thousands)

115,037

102,413

12,624

1,000

Ammunition, small arms (millions)

46,140

41,746

4,394

502

Tanks and tank chassis

108,941

103,226

5,715

0

Scout cars and carriers

132,416

89,072

43,344

6,783

Military trucks, all types (thousands)

3,245

2,472

773

0

a Includes conversions; 147 patrol vessels, 104 mine craft, and 349 cargo vessels.Source: U.S. Civilian Production Administration, Official Munitions Production of the United States (Washington, 1947).
This report contains a combined U.S.-Canadian supplement.

the world over. The quantities of military items produced, as shown in Table 3, are enough to challenge the imagination.

To reach that level of achievement, Canada and the United States were required to carry out extensive expansion of plant and production capacity. In Canada this expansion was proportionately greater than in the United States and was achieved through the assistance of the United States. The fall of France marked the beginning of the real acceleration of munitions production on both sides of the border. The Canadian production effort was initially severely limited by the available production capacity, and in order to expand capacity there was a critical need for machine tools. Although a large world-wide demand existed, Canada was able to make substantial purchases of machine tools in the United States. Without these tools the expansion of Canadian military production that occurred would not have been possible. Even when U.S. export of machine tools was made subject to

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licensing by the Act of Congress of 2 July 1940, Canada was still able to obtain the tools it needed without encountering any difficulties.53 The Canadian production effort also received assistance in other ways, one of which was that U.S. companies having Canadian branches provided the technical experts needed to assist in Canadian expansion.54

While Canada and the United States had taken preliminary steps to assist each other in 1940, the real basis for production co-operation was established at Hyde Park on 20 April 1941 by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister King. King and other Canadian officials had earlier been unsuccessfully exploring with U.S. officers in Washington ways and means of meeting the increasing demands for U.S. dollars of Canada's growing production program. By the spring of 1941 these demands had reduced the Canadian holdings of U.S. dollar, exchange to dangerously low levels. Just three days after an inconclusive discussion of the problem with Secretary of State Hull, King found the opportunity to present it to the President during a vist to Hyde Park. The two agreed to an arrangement which the President named the Hyde Park Declaration.55

The basic purpose of the Hyde Park Declaration was to make it possible for Canada to obtain the U.S. dollar exchange it needed to permit essential purchases from the United States. This was to be accomplished by coordinating the production programs of the two countries so that Canada would manufacture, and sell to the United States, the munitions and materials that the Canadian economy was in a better position to supply. This arrangement would permit the United States to delete such items from its production program and to meet its needs through purchases from Canada. In order to facilitate the execution of the co-ordinated program, the United States granted to Canada equal priorities in the assignment of scarce machine tools, raw materials, and shipping allocations.56

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The dollar exchange objectives of the Hyde Park arrangement were easily achieved. Under the agreement, the United States proceeded to place production orders in Canada in the amounts necessary to cover the Canadian exchange needs. These orders allowed the growing Canadian demands for imports from the United States adequately to be met. The Canadian exchange situation was further improved by a provision of the Hyde Park Declaration that permitted Great Britain to obtain, under lend-lease procedures, component parts the Canadians had theretofore been purchasing in the United States for assembly into equipment being produced in Canada for Great Britain.

The arrangement served its intended purpose perfectly, and, by the end of 1942, new and unexpected sources were supplying U.S. dollar exchange well in excess of Canadian needs. A great expansion of exports, together with large U.S. capital expenditures in Canada, accounted for the unexpected accumulations. In fact, within two years the influx of U.S. dollars into Canada had become so great that it became necessary to put into effect, an arrangement to control the size of Canadian holdings of U.S. dollars.57

The sale of Canadian-produced matériel to the United States was handled by a crown company, War Supplies, Limited, established on 13 May 1941 to negotiate and receive the U.S. orders expected under the Hyde Park Declaration and to place them in Canada. This company immediately undertook an intensive selling campaign in the War, Navy, and Treasury Departments, War Shipping Administration, Metals Reserve Corporation, and other U.S. agencies. In less than three months, contracts totaling approximately $200 million had been obtained. Initially, purchases were made of types of matériel suitable for transfer to the United Kingdom under the U.S. lend-lease program, but after Pearl Harbor large orders were placed for types of equipment used by the United States.58

By 31 March 1946 Canadian cash receipts from U.S. purchases of Canadian matériel under the program amounted to $1,118 million. In addition, over $100 million in orders had been canceled in 1943 as a means of reducing Canadian accumulations of U.S. dollars, and $200 million in contracts had been terminated after V-J Day. The most serious and most criticized

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TABLE 4--UNITED STATES LEND-LEASE AID:11 MARCH 1941-31 DECEMBER
1955(Thousands of U.S. dollars)

Total charged to foreign governments

$48,900,118

Not distributed by foreign governments

1,308,283

Gross lend-lease aid

a50,208,401

Reverse lend-lease aidb

7,819,323

Net lend-lease aid

42,389,078

American Republics

493,026

Belgium

156,255

British Empirec

31,610,813

China

1,602,249

Czechoslovakia

435

Denmark

4,061

Egypt

2,323

Ethiopia

5,152

France

3,269,936

Greece

81,424

Iceland

4,497

Iran

5,304

Iraq

891

Italy

186,372

Liberia

19,423

Netherlands

246,369

Norway

47,023

Poland

12,452

Saudi Arabia

22,670

Turkey

42,850

USSR

11,054,404

Yugoslavia

32,189

a Of this total, $2,343,871,637 of aid was provided during the period 2 September 1945 through 31 December 1955.b The principal contributions, in thousands of dollars, were Belgium $191,216, British Commonwealth $6,752,073, and
France $867,781.c This term is apparently intended to embrace those Commonwealth nations that were aid recipients. Canada was
the notable exception.Source: Twenty-seventh Report to Congress on Lend-Lease Operations (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1956).

aspect of the program was the repeated Canadian failure to meet delivery schedules. After the enactment of U.S. contract renegotiation legislation, Canada and the United States agreed on profits to be allowed under the U.S. contracts. United States contracts let to Canadian Government agencies provided for no profit, although amortization of government-owned facilities was allowed at a maximum rate of 25 percent annually. Contracts let to private corporations allowed a profit of 10 percent of cost.

The United States from its war production supplied arms to certain nations through the Lend-Lease Act of 11 March 1941, which provided the authority for ultimate delivery of a net of over $40 billion of munitions and services to countries throughout the world. (Table 4) Canada was a

a These figures include supplies that were not delivered because of the cessation of hostilities and that were later declared
surplus.Source: Canadian Mutual Aid Board, Final Report, 1946 (Ottawa: E. Cloutier, King's Printer, 1947), p. 9.

notable exception from the list of recipient countries. It felt that as a nation in a favored position, free from the ravages of war, it should meet its own needs and indeed share with the United States in aiding the less fortunate of the Allies.59

In line with this policy, Canada adopted a similar program of aid to the Allies. Throughout 1941 and part of 1942, Canadian help initially took the form of loans and other measures which provided the United Kingdom with Canadian exchange in the amount of $1,700 million needed to pay for the munitions the British were procuring from Canada. During 1942 Canada made an outright grant of one billion dollars to the United Kingdom, raising to a total of $2,700 million the Canadian exchange made available to the British. A stream of Canadian supplies, financed by these funds, flowed to the British Commonwealth nations and the USSR through the distribution machinery operated by the United Kingdom.

On 20 May 1943 the "War Appropriation (United Nations Mutual Aid) Act, 1943" was approved and became effective. Under the Mutual Aid Act, Canada proceeded to make arrangements directly with the ultimate recipients of Canadian aid and took the decisions as to what supplies would be provided the countries on the basis of their aid requests. Under the provisions

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TABLE 6--CANADA'S WAR PRODUCTION DURING THE MUTUAL AID PERIOD:
1 SEPTEMBER 1943-1 SEPTEMBER 1945(Millions of Canadian dollars)

Major Item Group

Munitions Production

Mutual Aid asPercent of Total

Total Canada

Mutual AidCountries

Total

$4,642

$2,636

a57

Shipbuilding

788

303

38

Aircraft

578

342

59

Transportation equipment

1,124

843

75

Ordnance

272

217

80

Ammunition, chemicals, and explosives

721

574

80

Communications

364

173

47

General supplies

795

184

23

a Of this figure, 38 percent was financed by mutual aid, and 19 percent was purchased for cash by the United Kingdom.
The remaining 43 percent was divided between Canada's own armed services (29 percent) and purchases by the United States (14 percent).Source: Canadian Mutual Aid Board, Final Report, 1946, p. 16.

of this act and subsequent appropriations, Canada granted additional aid totaling $2,482 million (Canadian) to the Allies during World War II. (Table 5) Aid provided under the Canadian Mutual Aid Act differed from lend-lease aid in that, as a general rule, the former was not subject to arrangements for repayment or redelivery. Canada did retain title to the ships it provided. The bulk of U.S. lend-lease aid was also, under the final settlements, provided on a grant basis.60

Of particular interest is the fact that, during the period Canada was furnishing assistance under the Mutual Aid Act, only 29 percent of Canadian war production went to meet Canadian needs. As Table 6 indicates, 57 percent went to mutual aid countries; the remaining 14 percent was purchased by the United States. The relationship of the total aid expenditures of the two, countries to the total military cost of World War II is also interesting. Canada's total war aid, including mutual aid and the billiondollar grant to the United Kingdom, amounted to $3,482 million as compared with the estimated total military cost of World War II to Canada of $15,580 million. For the United States, the net lend-lease aid, excluding reverse lend-lease, amounted to $42,389 million, while the total military cost of World War II to the United States was estimated at $330,030 million. It is apparent that Canada like the United States made contributions to Allied victory generally proportionate to its national capabilities.

6.
From the extensive literature on this project, only two official sources are cited
as briefly covering the background and World War II consideration thereof.
Department of State Bulletin, November 4, 1945, XIII, 715-19;
Department of External Affairs, External Affairs, I, No. 2 (February 1949), 3-11.

7.
Hull, Memoirs, I, 775;
Privy Council 2399, 7 Jun 40;
3294, 20 Jul 40); 3511, 30 Jul 40.
At the outbreak of World War II, only British subjects could be enlisted or
commissioned in the Canadian forces. By an order-in-council of 14 September 1939
(Privy Council 2677), Canada created the RCAF Special Reserve, which could accept
aliens who were, however, required to take an oath of allegiance. A few months later,
the Canadian Army made similar provisions to permit the enlistment of Americans
and other aliens.

23.
For a general examination of the problem of taxation of foreign forces,
by authors who participated in the development of the U.S. positions,
see Chas. Fairman and Archibald King, "Taxation of Friendly Foreign Armed Forces,"
American Journal of International Law, XXXVIII (1944), 258-77.

24.
EAS, 246, and CTS, 1942, No. 13;
EAS, 386, and CTS, 1942, No. 23.
See also Department of National Revenue WM No. 75 and WM No. 75 (Revised),
published under authority of Privy Council 53/8097.
The revised order is in Canadian War Orders and Regulations, I (1944), 369-72.

42.
Eggleston, Scientists at War, gives a full and authoritative account of
co-operation on these projects.

43.
For further details on radar development, see two volumes in the series
UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II, Dulany Terrett,
The Signal Corps: The Emergency
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1956),
and George Raynor Thompson, Dixie R. Harris, Pauline Oakes, and Dulany Terrett,
The Signal Corps: The Test
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1957).

44.
The United States and Canada later agreed by an exchange of notes to the
mutual interchange of patent rights in connection with RDX and other explosives
that had been jointly developed during the war.
(TIAS, 1628;
CTS, 1946, No. 51.)

45.
For a fuller account of the Canadian role in the development of the atomic bomb,
see Eggleston, Scientists at War, especially Chapter V.
The most authoritative account of the American effort in this field is H. G. Smyth,
Atomic Energy for Military Purposes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945).

48.
Privy Council 535, 27 Jan 44;
H. C. Debates, 3 Jun 46, pp. 2106, 2125.
Canada consulted the United States as to the desirability of obtaining control of
the mines as early as June 1942 and received President Roosevelt's encouragement.
(Roosevelt Papers, Secy's Safe File, Dr. V. Bush Folder.)
For an account of operations at the uranium mines and of their role in the atom bomb project,
see Kennedy, History of the Department of Munitions and Supply, Ch. 25.

52.
For full official accounts of these production accomplishments, see Canada,
Department of Munitions and Supply, The Industrial Front
(Ottawa: E. Cloutier, King's Printer, 1944);
U.S. War Production Board, Industrial Mobilization for War, I,
Program and Administration (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1947),
and H. Duncan Hall,
North American Supply
(History of the Second World War: United Kingdom Civil Series
[London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1951]).

King rendered an interesting account of the meeting and the formulation of
the declaration to the U.S. Chargé d'Affaires, Lewis Clark.
King said that during his pleasant visit the two were driving around the Hyde Park estate.
Suddenly King remembered a memorandum his financial people had given him,
pulled it out of his pocket, and showed it to the President. The President read it
and declared that he could agree to it without difficulty. King insisted that he had
been taught from childhood that papers involving money should be signed,
upon which the President took the memorandum and scribbled on it:
"Signed, Franklin and Mackenzie." (Ltr, Lewis Clark to author, 15 Oct 42.)
For another version of the meeting, see Bruce Hutchinson,
The Incredible Canadian (Toronto: Longmans, Green and Company, 1952), pp. 288-89.

56.
Dawson, Canada in World Affairs: 1939-1941, passim.
See also James' full account of Wartime Economic Co-operation.

57.
See Ch. XII, below.
The U.S. dollar expenditure goals of the Hyde Park Declaration were easily achieved.
The volume of sales in each of the years from 1942 to 1944, inclusive, was respectively
$275, $301, and $314 million. Canada, Foreign Exchange Control Board,
Report to the Minister of Finance, March 1946
(Ottawa: E. Cloutier, King's Printer, 1946), p. 26.
F. A. Knox, in "Canada's Balance of International Payments, 1940-45,"
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XIII (August 1947), 345-62.

58.
This and the following paragraphs are based on Kennedy,
History of the Department of Munitions and Supply, Ch. 42.
For Canadian use of Lend-Lease Act procedures under this program, see James,
Wartime Economic Co-operation, pp. 31-42.